Cisco Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners | May 2013
The Power of SNTC to the Cisco Partner
Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Table of Contents
The Power of SNTC to the Cisco Partner ..................................................................................................... 3
Go to Market Model ................................................................................................................................... 4
Playbook for Partners .................................................................................................................................... 5
Intended Audience ..................................................................................................................................... 6
Playbook Structure .................................................................................................................................... 6
How To Use The Playbook ........................................................................................................................ 7
Smart Net Total Care Overview .................................................................................................................... 8
What Is Cisco Smart Net Total Care? ....................................................................................................... 8
Value Proposition for Customers ............................................................................................................... 9
Value Proposition for Partners ................................................................................................................ 10
Partner Role as Reseller ...................................................................................................................... 11
Smart Net Total Care – Enhance the SMARTnet Experience ................................................................ 11
Services that Complement Smart Net Total Care ....................................................................................... 12
Suggestions for Partner Value Added Services ...................................................................................... 12
Smart Net Total Care Training .................................................................................................................... 14
Action Plan .................................................................................................................................................. 15
Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 17
Opportunity .............................................................................................................................................. 17
Customer Business Needs and Challenges ........................................................................................ 17
Types of IT Services ............................................................................................................................ 18
Advantage and Differentiation ............................................................................................................. 18
Cisco Services ......................................................................................................................................... 20
What Does This Mean To Partners? ................................................................................................... 20
Cisco Services and Partner Business Models ..................................................................................... 20
Cisco Branded Services....................................................................................................................... 21
Cisco Collaborative Services ............................................................................................................... 22
Choices and Partner Business Models ................................................................................................ 23
Marketing ................................................................................................................................................. 25
Where do Opportunities come from? ................................................................................................... 25
How do you Find Opportunities? ......................................................................................................... 25
Recognizing Other Opportunities for Cisco Smart Net Total Care ...................................................... 27
What do you Need? ............................................................................................................................. 27
Sales ........................................................................................................................................................ 29
Measuring Success ................................................................................................................................. 31
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
The Power of SNTC to the Cisco Partner
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Would you like to grow your support revenue with each of your customers?
Would you like to quickly identify opportunities to refresh Cisco products with your customers?
Would you like to reduce the time you spend on renewals and focus your time on more strategic
conversations with your customers?
Do you want to stay competitive in the market and provide a key differentiator to your
customers, ensuring you are their preferred partner?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should be positioning Smart Net Total Care (SNTC)
with your customers.
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Do your customers spend too much time and resources managing their Cisco inventory?
Would they benefit from a service that provides up-to-date visibility into their Cisco installed
base and contract status?
Do they worry that they might not have critical Cisco products properly covered or they lack
visibility to what products might be near end of service?
Do they complain that entitlement issues slow down problem resolution with the Cisco
Technical Assistance Center (TAC)?
What if they could prevent network disruption by Cisco proactively identifying and notifying
them when installed devices are impacted by Cisco published security alerts and advisories?
If you answered yes to any of these customer questions, Smart Net Total Care can help. With Smart Net
Total Care, Cisco published security alerts and advisories proactively identify and notify the customer
when installed devices are impacted thus preventing network disruptions.
Smart Net Total Care provides all of the award winning foundational capabilities of SMARTnet, with
additional proactive smart capabilities. Smart Net Total Care identifies the customer’s Cisco inventory
and securely communicates this to the Cisco data center, where it is analyzed against Cisco
manufacturing, security, shipping, and contract data. The result is a comprehensive view of their
installed base, service contracts, and product alerts.
Through the Smart Net Total Care customer portal, your customer has anytime visibility into their
inventory, contracts, and alerts, as well as the ability to download actionable reports that enable them
to manage their business more efficiently.
When you sell Smart Net Total Care to your customer, the customer can grant you access, as a CBR-user,
to the same detailed information about their installed base, product alerts, and contracts that you have
sold to them. You can then become their strategic partner by proactively providing your customer with
information that will allow them to manage their business more efficiently and to reduce the risks of
network outages and denied entitlements. In addition, you will benefit financially by identifying
uncovered devices and establishing technology upgrades for their Cisco devices where End of Life (EoL)
and End of Support (EoS) dates are identified.
That’s the —Power of Smart Net Total Care for the Cisco Partner!
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 3 of 31
Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Go to Market Model
In order to ensure that Cisco sales teams and partner sales teams are aligned around a common go-tomarket model and are able to collaborate efficiently around services opportunities, Cisco has
established the Cisco Services Go-to-Market (GTM) Rules of Engagement.
These rules of engagement provide guidance and direction to Cisco and our partners in the selling and
delivery of Cisco Services to build a collaborative and predictable field sales and delivery model.
The Services Rules of Engagement provide:
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Joint account planning guidelines
Definition of services to sell in customer-led and partner-led accounts
Escalation process for partners, if Cisco and a partner reach an impasse over the handling of the
GTM strategy
Cisco sales compensation neutrality strategy in transformational customer accounts
With the Services GTM model and Rules of Engagement clearly defined, we can collaborate to deliver
architectural solutions to our customers for deeper business impact, resulting in increased revenue.
Refer to the documents listed in the Resources table below for more details.
Resources:
Resource
Cisco Services GTM Rules of Engagement site
Services GTM Overview Presentation
Services GTM Detailed Document
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Description
Landing page on Partner Central.
Overview presentation for partners.
Detailed description document.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Playbook for Partners
This playbook provides insights on how you can optimize and evolve your business by
reselling Cisco Smart Net Total Care, improve your revenue mix by offering your own
partner–branded value added services, and improve your revenue potential through
increased bookings of Cisco Branded Services and additional Cisco product sales.
In today’s demanding business environment, we are seeing a number of trends among customers that
reinforce increasing dependency on leveraging the extended enterprise to cope with change. These
include rising expectations, innovation everywhere, market velocity, and financial pressures. At first
glance, these trends might not seem like anything new. What's different is that technology is now
available to help organizations respond to these trends in a new way.
In light of this dynamic business environment, demands of your customers, and key technology
disruptions; it will be important to find ways to drive growth, address the pressures from your
competitors, and increase profitability.
In a recent study, Amazon Consulting, a leading global channel consulting services firm, found that over
40% of the partners interviewed said that entering new markets and adding emerging technologies to
their portfolio were key strategies in fostering growth and stability in today’s market. (Ziff-Davis /
Amazon Consulting - Market Pulse 2010 Study).
In the area of addressing competitive pressures, recent partner interviews performed by Mindwave
Research found that driving innovative service capabilities was key for partners when it comes to
differentiating themselves from competitors. (Cisco Partner Messaging Research performed by
Mindwave Research, 2010).
Figure 1: Evolving Mix
In light of this dynamic business environment, customer demands, and key technology disruptions, it will
be important to find ways to drive growth, address the pressures from your competitors, and increase
profitability.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
As illustrated in Figure 1, one way to respond to these market changes, take advantage of the
opportunities, and optimize and evolve your business is to leverage Cisco services to help you move
from a product-centric business model (Today’s Mix) to a more balanced mix of products, recurring
revenues, maintenance services, managed services, and professional services (The Evolving Mix).
Intended Audience
The playbook has been created to help Cisco channel partners who are interested in growing their
services business to better understand what Smart Net Total Care is and how it can be resold and used
as part of their overall services portfolio. The intended audience includes
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Cisco Partner Business Executives and Owners
Cisco Partner Business Development Teams
Cisco Partner Services and Practice Managers
Playbook Structure
The Smart Net Total Care Playbook is packaged into an Adobe Portfolio file. The portfolio format allows
for multiple, different types of documents and content to be packaged together into a single file. (Figure
2)
In the case of the playbook, we have included two items: the Playbook document and a Resources
folder, which contains supporting content, tools, and reference materials. This approach makes it easier
for you to find the key supporting assets you need to apply the guidance provided in the Playbook.
Figure 2: Playbook Structure
Note:
Use the “Check for Updates” link in the playbook to download the latest version.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
How To Use The Playbook
Begin by scanning the playbook to obtain a quick overview of the recommendations and available
resources. Then, depending on your information needs,
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Review all the the playbook sections in a sequential way for a guided tour of Cisco Smart Net
Total Care and the options available to you.
Refer to the Appendix for additional background information, or
Jump to specific sections that are most pertinent to your immediate needs.
The hyperlinks included throughout the playbook will take you to documents, websites, and resources
that can help enable you to grow your business with Cisco Smart Net Total Care, increase your
profitability, and improve end customer satisfaction.
Note:
In most cases, the hyperlinks to web sites require you to login with your Cisco Partner Central
UserID and password.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Smart Net Total Care Overview
This section provides an overview of Smart Net Total Care. It explains aspects of the service that include
partner engagement, that help develop adjacent partner branded services to provide additional value
for the customer, and that improve revenue potential through increased support service and product
sales.
What Is Cisco Smart Net Total Care?
Cisco Smart Net Total Care Service is a Cisco Branded Service available for resale by Cisco partners. In
addition to the Cisco foundational technical support capabilities that customers currently receive from
SMARTnet, it provides installed base, contract management, and alert management for a customer’s
Cisco products, and device diagnostics for Smart Call Home enabled devices. It is a proactive
maintenance service that improves risk management, helps resolve problems quickly, and reduces
operating expenses for customers.
By using information collected about Cisco products and correlating it with Cisco's deep knowledge base
and product expertise, Smart Net Total Care delivers actionable intelligence and proactive support
capabilities that reduce operating costs and minimize the downtime of a customer’s network.
Customer areas of need that can be addressed with Smart Net Total Care include
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Installed base and contract management
Support contract renewal
Cisco TAC entitlement
Alert management
Lifecycle planning
Proper Cisco service coverage
Detailed inventory information, lifecycle status, and contract coverage is made available through a
secure web portal, along with targeted alerts. Proactive device diagnostics from the Smart Call Home
enabled devices and foundational technical service capabilities all work together to help the customer
maintain their Cisco products.
TIP: SNTC is only one of the key Cisco Branded Services. Other Cisco Branded Services are also
available for partner resale, along with a portfolio of Cisco Collaborative Services available to
partners. Therefore, it is recommended that you consider using Collaborative Services together
with reselling Cisco Branded Services.
See the section on Cisco Services for more details.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Value Proposition for Customers
Cisco Smart Net Total Care has features and functions that enable you and your customers to manage
their networks more effectively and efficiently.
Results include a comprehensive view of installed base, service contracts, and product alerts. (Figure 3)
Smart Net Total Care allows customers to:
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Reduce operational risk
Speed mean time to resolution
Simplify business operations
Identify and track what’s new, what’s
changed, what’s covered, and what’s not
 Preempt network disruption by proactively
identifying and notifying users of installed
devices impacted by Cisco published security
alerts and advisories.
Value customers receive:
 Comprehensive view of Installed base and
contracts
 Actionable reports
 Information to assist with contract
consolidation
 Entitlement confidence
 Simplified contract renewal
 Timely RMA assurance
 Device lifecycle data
 Device specific alert notification
Figure 3: Customer Value
Cisco Smart Net Total Care is built on Cisco foundational technical services such as technical assistance,
online technical resources, advanced hardware replacement, and software updates, along with smart
capabilities consisting of device diagnostics, installed base and contract management, and alerts. (Figure
4)
Figure 4: Cisco Smart Net Total Care Components
The value of the Smart Capabilities is explained in more detail here.
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Installed base and contract management: Regular collection and flexible reporting capabilities
help a customer manage their Cisco installed base and contracts, identifying and tracking what’s
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
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new, what’s changed, what’s covered, and what’s not covered. This helps ensure the proper
service coverage is in place, and helps ensure that any issue is resolved with world-class Cisco
expertise.
Alerts: To preempt network disruptions, Cisco published product alerts and security advisories
proactively identify and notify users of any issues involving installed devices, through organized
reports in the portal. Cisco alerts and notifications are correlated against the customer’s
installed base. A Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT), software, hardware, and field
alerts are included. Customers see a personalized Cisco portal showing alerts relevant to their
network.
Device diagnostics: Cisco Smart Call Home technology accelerates early diagnosis and
remediation of faults through proactive self-diagnosis and rules-based problem resolution.
Cisco Smart Net Total Care provides tailored smart capabilities on top of foundational technical support.
The result is an increase in customer visibility and control of the Cisco devices and contracts in the
customer’s network.
Value Proposition for Partners
As with other Cisco Branded Services, the immediate value to a Cisco partner is focused on reselling
Smart Net Total Care to customers.
Immediate benefits of reselling Smart Net Total Care include:
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Incremental services revenue opportunities
Identify products that can be refreshed
Improve “stickiness” of the relationship with the customer
Reselling Smart Net Total Care requires very little investment in training and resources, but does provide
your organization with immediate sales opportunities when you attach Smart Net Total Care at the point
of sale for Cisco products and solutions. It also gives your sales team an excellent opportunity to provide
additional value to customers who currently have SMARTnet, through renewals and upsell
opportunities.
Once you have deployed Smart Net Total Care to a customer, you can demonstrate additional value to
the customer through contract consolidation, alerts, and reporting capabilities.
In addition, once your team has been selling Smart Net Total Care for a while, you may consider
identifying your own unique value-added complementary services to further enhance your value to the
customer.
These partner-branded value added services can be used to provide your customers with a more
comprehensive product maintenance and support solution for their Cisco products.
In other words, adding Smart Net Total Care to your portfolio allows you to move the sales discussion
from a transactional focus to a consultative focus. This leads to increased customer loyalty.
These consultative approaches can include the following.
Consultative approach:
Show your customer all changes to their network on a regular
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Related SNTC reports:
Inventory Delta Report
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Consultative approach:
basis, ensure they know what is happening in their
environment.
Assure all RMAs and other MACDs are confirmed and
adjustments are made.
Preempt network disruptions by proactively identifying and
notifying users of installed devices impacted by Cisco
published security alerts and advisories.
Develop a migration plan with the customer for EoS/EoL
devices, removing the risk of network disruption and allowing
timely replacement and accurate budgeting of cost for the
customer.
Quarterly Business Review (QBR) Support – show your
customer the changes in their network, illustrate the risk
avoidance from device coverage, alerts, EoL/EoS.
Related SNTC reports:
Inventory Delta Report, Contracts Report
Alert Delta Report
Aggregated Report
Inventory Report, Inventory Delta Report,
Alert Delta Report, Aggregated Report,
Contracts Report
Partner Role as Reseller
Because Smart Net Total Care is a Cisco Branded Service, it is very important for the customer to know
that even though the service is sold by the partner, it is delivered by Cisco directly to the customer. The
partner’s role is that of reseller.
TIP: While it is possible for you to offer other complementary services that can help the
customer with the implementation and ongoing management of the service, the customer must
always be aware that the service is provided directly by Cisco to the customer.
Cisco Smart Net Total Care has been sold and deployed to hundreds of customers worldwide and has
received wide customer acceptance. Therefore, you can be confident about positioning and selling Cisco
Smart Net Total Care to your customers.
Cisco Smart Net Total Care provides you and your customers with visibility into gaps in their Cisco
service contracts. This means that customers and their preferred partners will be better enabled with
the information required to identify the proper level of service coverage, plan and budget for
technology changes, and renew and consolidate their Cisco service contracts.
Combining these benefits together with the opportunity to create and offer your own complementary,
partner-branded, value add services presents a compelling opportunity for partners interested in
growing their services business with limited investment and with an accelerated ramp to revenue.
Smart Net Total Care – Enhance the SMARTnet Experience
Smart Net Total Care is built on the technical support capabilities of SMARTnet, plus additional smart
capabilities that provide better visibility into the state of a customer’s Cisco assets, to create actionable
intelligence that helps the customer make better business decisions.
As a result, Smart Net Total Care should make it easier for Cisco partner sales teams to renew service
contracts and increase service coverage, resulting in increased services revenue.
Upsell to Smart Net Total Care for a customer who has:
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
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A large installed base of Cisco products,
Wants improved visibility into support coverage and contracts, and
Who wants to minimize entitlement questions which can slow down time-to-resolution.
Services that Complement Smart Net Total Care
In addition to having your sales teams resell Cisco Smart Net Total Care, you have opportunities to
develop and sell your own partner-branded complementary value-added services.
A complementary partner value-added service is defined as a service that builds upon partner strengths,
offers customer value that complements a Cisco solution, and is delivered by the partner. In this
context, you can develop and sell adjacent services to Cisco Smart Net Total Care that can:
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Evolve your business to a more desirable mix of product and services sales
Grow your services revenue and reap higher margins that typically come from services
These types of services can strengthen your customer’s perception of you as their trusted advisor,
provide professional development opportunities for your technical staff, and expand what your sales
people can sell.
Your unique knowledge about a customer’s network architecture, your experience in implementing
other devices or the whole network, and your customer relationship make you well suited to provide
these services and more.
Suggestions for Partner Value Added Services
Other services you can consider developing that can augment your Cisco Smart Net Total Care offers
may include the following:
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Create a service that offloads the ongoing administration and monitoring activities associated
with Smart Net Total Care from the customer staff.
Offer periodic quarterly reviews that use the Cisco Smart Net Total Care data and help the
customer interpret that information.
Leverage the Smart Net Total Care inventory data to perform move/add/change tasks for
customer devices, or to provide a “contract management” service.
Use the Cisco Smart Net Total Care portal data to publish and communicate summary reports on
issue resolution activities.
Provide network design planning services to help the customer plan for upgrades to the network
to accommodate future application and solution deployments.
TIP: Note that in all of the above scenarios, the customer will need to grant you access as a CBRuser to their Smart Net Total Care portal, and must be willing to share their data with your team.
Note also that you will only be able to access contract data on contracts that you have sold to the
customer.
Refer to the Opportunity section in the Appendix for additional information on the overall opportunities
for partners and why partners are evolving their businesses to a more services-centric model and refer
to the Marketing and Sales section for more general background information on positioning and selling
Cisco Branded Services and your own smart-enabled services.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Smart Net Total Care Resources:
Resource
Deployment Best Practices Guide
Description
Smart Net Total Care Deployment Best Practices
(Contact your PSDM for more details)
General Resources:
Resource
Support Services: Structuring and Training Your Team for
Growth
Support Services: Implementing a Profitable and
Repeatable Support Framework
Support Services: Leading Practices for Network
Monitoring
Description
Leading practice guide
Leading practice guide
Leading practice guide
In this section we have provided a summary of the most pertinent facts and information about Smart
Net Total Care to help you to make an informed decision about whether or not the service fits into your
overall strategy and business model.
Refer to the Resources table below for links to additional resources and more detailed information
about Smart Net Total Care.
Resources:
Resource
Smart Net Total Care Webpage
Smart Net Total Care Overview Brochure
Smart Net Total Care Data Sheet
Smart Net Total Care Deep Dive White
Paper
Improve the Service Experience
Security Whitepaper
Smart Net Total Care Presentation
Smart Net Total Care Interactive Demo
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Description
Cisco public site for Smart Net Total Care. Provides
links to videos and case studies.
Customer facing brochure.
Customer facing data sheet.
Customer facing deep dive whitepaper.
Customer facing white paper.
Customer facing security white paper (Available July,
2013)
Customer facing presentation.
(Included in the Playbook package)
Demonstration guide for Smart Net Total Care.
(Contact your PSDM for more details)
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Smart Net Total Care Training
Once you have decided to include Smart Net Total Care as a resell service to help your customers
manage their installed base, contracts, and alerts, the next step is to provide suitable training to your
sales and technical teams.
This section provides details of available training options for both Smart Net Total Care and for
positioning and selling Smart Services and Cisco services in general.
Many of these training courses are part of the Cisco Accelerate Program, a free resource for Cisco
partners like you.
The Cisco Services Accelerate Program is a worldwide training and incentive program for eligible Cisco
channel partners. The program is designed to help you and your teams sell Cisco Services more
effectively and grow your business.
The Cisco Services Accelerate Program:
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Offers easy-to-use, self-paced online training at no cost
Provides a comprehensive range of learning topics
Rewards individuals for time investment with an opportunity to earn prizes
Helps partners effectively position and sell Cisco Services
Helps partners increase services bookings
Can assist partners retain and satisfy customers
In addition to this sales training, additional technical training can be provided to your technical teams on
request. Please contact your Partner Services Development Manager (PSDM) for more details.
Smart Net Total Care Resources:
Resource
Accelerate - Selling Services
Accelerate - Selling Services
Accelerate - Selling Services
Description
Selling Smart Net Total Care
SNTC: Setting Expectations (Available July, 2013)
SNTC: Objection Handling (Available July, 2013)
Highlighted Smart Services Resources:
Resource
Description
Accelerate Program
Accelerate Landing Page
Accelerate - Selling Services
Identifying Smart Services Opportunities
Accelerate - Selling Services
Positioning Services over Warranty
Accelerate - Selling Services
Selling Cisco Services Contract Renewals
Accelerate - Selling Services
Selling Multiyear Cisco Service Agreements
Accelerate - Selling Services
Selling Services Early in the Sales Process
Accelerate - Selling Services
Selling Smart Services Best Practices
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Action Plan
Below is a high-level list of steps together with links to supporting information, to help you add Smart
Net Total Care to your services portfolio and in building your value-added service offers.
Note:
Refer to the Resources folder in the Playbook package containing this document for an Excel
workbook version of this Action Plan.
Action Plan Steps
Responsible
Date
Status
Plan
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Step 1: Assess your business. Visit the
Cisco=Best in Class site for information.

Step 2: Gain an awareness of Cisco Smart Net
Total Care and related opportunities.

Step 3: Decide whether to resell Smart Net
Total Care only, or to resell Smart Net Total
Care and develop your own value-added
services.
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Step 4: Engage your Cisco services account
representative.
Design
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Step 5: Identify or create your Smart-enabled
service offers around Cisco Smart Net Total
Care.
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Step 6: Plan your Smart Net Total Care and
value-added services marketing efforts.
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Step 7: Develop your value-added services.
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Step 8: Train your sales people to sell Smart
Net Total Care and your value-added services.

Step 9: Train your technical staff on Smart Net
Total Care and your value-added services.
Implement

Step 10: Implement your demand generation
campaign.
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Step 11: Get sales selling Smart Net Total Care
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
and your value-added services.
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Step 12: Deliver Smart Net Total Care and your
services and solutions.
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Step 13: Implement a customer satisfaction
survey.
Optimize
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Step 14: Implement a post project continuous
improvement evaluation process.

Step 15: Periodically evaluate customer needs
for new services.

Step 16: Use Cisco Steps to Success to help
expand your services practice.

Step 17: Assess your sales and marketing
teams skills in services demand creation, lead
follow up, and deal closure.

Step 18: Use the “Measure Your Success”
section of this playbook to track and manage
services metrics.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Appendix
This section of the playbook provides additional information about Smart Net Total Care as well as
guidelines to help you apply the strategies in this guide and grow your services business using Cisco
services and resources.
Key sub-sections include
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Opportunity – Identifying the overall opportunity for partner services
Cisco Services – an overview of the Cisco Services Partner Program and Cisco service offers
Marketing - guidance and resources for marketing your services offers.
Sales – guidance and resources for selling your services offers.
Measuring Success – metrics to help measure the success of your initiative.
Each of these sub-sections includes links to additional supporting information.
Opportunity
Customer reliance on technology solutions to operate their businesses offers opportunities to Cisco
partners. A value chain assessment starts with customers who have business needs and challenges.
Those business needs translate into IT solution needs, which translate into IT infrastructure and service
needs. These IT needs are typically aligned to various technologies and architectures.
Customer Business Needs and Challenges
Identifying and delivering technology solutions depends on a number of activities. By considering a
lifecycle approach, you can identify service streams by lifecycle stage and, as a result, broaden and
deepen your business potential.
As indicated in Figure 5, everything starts with the customer, and the customer has business and
technology needs (step 1).
Figure 5: Five Steps that Lead to Services
In the case of product-centric partners, these customers may purchase products from you today (step
2). However, as step 3 depicts, you may want to expand your suite of offers and broaden your control of
the customer environment. Typically, types of value-added offerings that you can add are enabled by
services aligned with the lifecycle stages: Plan, Build, and Manage (step 4). This leads to step 5, where
you may need to determine how to add these value-added services to your portfolio of offers.
Today, more and more companies like yours are looking into the future and reaching the same
conclusion: the market rewards companies who shift their emphasis beyond products to focus on new
models that emphasize value-added services as well.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
This Smart Net Total Care Playbook for Partners provides you with one way to move your business in
this direction, and provides the guidance and resources to help you leverage Smart Net Total Care in
your business.
Types of IT Services
In the broadest sense, there are three key categories of IT services: Product Support Services, Managed
Services, and Professional Services. (Figure 6)
Figure 6: Types of Services
Each category comprises a different set of core services, or services offers that can be provided by
solution providers and partners.
For partners like yourselves, you must decide which of these three categories of services to offer, and
then decide whether you will offer all or only some of the components included in each category.
Once you have decided, the next step is to determine whether to build and deliver those service offers
yourself, to resell or outsource some of the service offers to Cisco or other 3rd party providers, or to
adopt a “hybrid” or collaborative approach, where you will deliver the service to the customer, but you
will leverage Cisco or a 3rd party provider on the back-end.
Advantage and Differentiation
As you establish your product support, managed services, and professional services offers, you will want
to consider the advantages of leveraging the products, services, guidance, resources, programs, and
marketing funds from Cisco. Consider how doing this can differentiate you from your competition.
The combination of your company’s valuable skills, resources, and investments together with Cisco
services, validated architectures, and leading practices can lead to increased profits, differentiation,
customer satisfaction, and growth for all.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Playbook for Partners
Figure 7: Approach to Reselling and Building Services with Cisco
As illustrated in Figure 7, Smart Net Total Care is one of the key Cisco Branded Resale services included
in the Cisco Services building block.
Refer to the Cisco Services section of this playbook to learn about the Cisco programs and services that
enable partners to realize their potential for providing IT services to customers. Refer to the Cisco=Best
in Class landing page in the resources table for more information about the concept depicted in Figure 7.
Resources:
Resource
Cisco Best in Class
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Description
Program designed to help partners establish services
marketing, sales, and delivery practices that will maximize their
profitability and increase sales.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Cisco Services
This section provides an overview of Cisco Services and specifically the Cisco Services Partner Program
(CSPP), Cisco Branded Services, and Cisco Collaborative Services.
The Cisco services partner strategy is to enable and recognize partners who use services to plan, build,
and manage customer solutions based on Cisco technologies. The Cisco Services Partner Program is
designed to offer you flexibility and choice to plan, develop, and deliver services.
What Does This Mean To Partners?
The aims of the consolidated services program for partners is intended to provide the following:
More profit potential: Smart services technologies help you uncover product and services
sales opportunities. You can earn greater rewards for closing those sales through a
performance-driven rebate structure.
Increased customer satisfaction: Better access to worldwide service offerings and
enablement tools help you consistently provide an excellent services experience.
Enhanced opportunities for business growth: Integrated product and service programs
with Cisco brand equity help you expand your market reach and competitively position
your services business with built-in program differentiators.
Simplified business model: The program creates a simplified way of doing business with
Cisco that offers greater operational efficiency at a lower cost through streamlined
contract administration while providing a consistent channel program experience.
Cisco Services and Partner Business Models
The Cisco Services Partner Program lets you choose which services offerings best meet your business
model and investment strategy while allowing you to further differentiate yourself from your
competitors.
The Cisco Services portfolio offers you ways to build and expand your service business with the
following:


Cisco Branded Services
Cisco Collaborative Services
You can choose to leverage one or both categories depending on how they best suit your business
model, skill set, needs, and preferences.
As shown in Figure 8, Cisco Branded Services such as Smart Net Total Care are services that are sold by
the partner and delivered by Cisco. These are the easiest, quickest, and most cost-effective way for Cisco
partners to add services to their portfolios.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Figure 8: Cisco Services
Collaborative Services such as Smart Care Service, Partner Support Service, and Collaborative
Professional Services are services that can be consumed by partners who are ready to establish their
own services teams and services infrastructure and offers. In this case, partners sell their own branded
services to customers, and leverage Cisco on the back end for delivery support to the customer. The
partner is the “face” to the customer when delivering collaborative services.
Cisco Branded Services
Cisco Branded Services include both the Cisco Technical Services and the Cisco Advanced Services
portfolios, offering partners access to Cisco technology experts, award-winning Web-based support
tools, software support and updates, and access to Cisco industry leadership. Partners who participate
in the program can resell Cisco Branded Services, which provides the opportunity to differentiate
themselves in the marketplace through increased renewals and higher service delivery quality and
customer satisfaction.
Cisco Branded Services are resale service offerings that span the network product services lifecycle. They
extend partner technology expertise and speed time to market without the need for an in-house
services infrastructure. Partners purchase the services from Cisco or a distributor, resell them to
customers, and manage the customer relationship while Cisco delivers the services.
Scenario for Cisco Branded Services: Cisco Smart Net Total Care
Cisco Smart Net Total Care is a Cisco Branded Service available to registered and certified partners in all
theaters. Your reasons for choosing to resell Cisco Branded Services such as Smart Net Total Care may
include a shorter time to market, or a decision not to invest and manage your own support staff and
infrastructure, or a desire to focus your resources and efforts on other solutions.
TIP! Cisco Branded Services are not “white box” services for a partner to rebrand as their own or
to embed in a partner service.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
It may be possible for you to create a “marketing bundle” consisting of Smart Net Total Care and your
specific partner-branded offers, but Smart Net Total Care will still be a distinct service purchased by the
customer.
Cisco Collaborative Services
Cisco Collaborative Services incorporate Cisco’s extensive knowledge base, smart services capabilities,
and global support infrastructure for partners to use in developing differentiated, high-value service
solutions. Partners must have specific certification, specialization, and partner program levels in order to
use Cisco Collaborative Services.
With Cisco Collaborative Services such as Smart Care and Partner Support Service, you create a partner
service offer that includes some or all elements of the collaborative service. In this case you take the
Cisco service and enrich it with your expertise, people, process, and products, and you sell and deliver
the service to the customer, while Cisco provides support to your teams.
In the case of Collaborative Professional Services, you create your own branded professional service
offers that you sell and deliver to customers directly, while Cisco Collaborative Professional Services
resources are used behind the scenes to assist your teams with the assessment, development, and
guidance activities associated with the delivery of the service. You decide which elements you need
from Cisco, and the customer need not be informed of Cisco’s involvement in the process.
Distinguishing features of a Cisco Collaborative Service include:






The partner sells and delivers the service to a customer and Cisco provides support and services
to the partner’s teams.
In the case of Smart Care and Partner Support Service, the partner takes at least the first call,
manages incidents, communicates with the customer, and resolves all incidents.
Marketing includes Partner brand and Cisco Smart Services Enabled branding.
Partner retains full account control.
Partner invests and maintains a technical support service infrastructure and staff.
Partners have opportunities to develop and sell partner-branded value-add services.
Scenario for Cisco Collaborative Services: Cisco Smart Care
Cisco Smart Care is a Cisco Collaborative Service available to registered and certified partners in all
theaters. Cisco Collaborative Services are used when Cisco and a partner work together to provide the
service offers to the customer together. Cisco Smart Care allows the partner to sell their own branded
product support or managed services offer without building everything themselves.
In this case, the partner sells and delivers the support service to the customer, with Cisco supporting the
partner teams.
Cisco Smart Care is the right choice for you if you want to



Continue delivering technical support services directly to your customers.
Collaborate with Cisco but still have the option to embed your specific specialties when
delivering services to your customers.
Directly own the primary relationship with the customer
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Scenario for Cisco Collaborative Services: Partner Support Service
Cisco Partner Support Service is also part of the Cisco family of Collaborative Services sold to qualified
Cisco partners. It combines Cisco’s deep knowledge base with software-based smart capabilities,
allowing you to expand your service offerings, lower delivery costs, improve time to market, and
increase customer intimacy.
Partner Support Service provides foundational technical services along with extensive installed base
management, alert reporting, and device diagnostics that you can embed within your service offerings.
As your business transitions from reactive, incident-based services to proactive support services, Cisco
Partner Support Service enables you to create personalized solution sets backed by Cisco technology
and expertise, and to respond more effectively to business challenges and competitive pressures.
As with Cisco Smart Care, your reasons for choosing to use Partner Support Services may include
leveraging your existing capability and on-going desire to deliver technical support services directly to
your customers. You want to leverage your existing or emerging abilities in technical support and
collaborate with Cisco and embed your specific specialties to deliver services to your customers, and you
would like to own the primary relationship with the customer directly.
A key factor about Partner Support Service is the scale and complexity of the networks it can support.
This is the first collaborative support offer that provides smart capabilities for these very large networks.
It also provides an application programming interface (API) feature called smart bonding that allows the
service to be integrated into your support applications, tools, and system.
Like Cisco Smart Care, Partner Support Services is the right choice for you if you want to



Continue delivering technical support services directly to your customers.
Collaborate with Cisco but still have the option to embed your specific specialties when
delivering services to your customers.
Directly own the primary relationship with the customer.
While Partner Support Service provides an excellent opportunity for you to build and enhance your own
collaborative service offerings, not all partners will be ready to gain advantage from implementing the
service. It is important to understand the market opportunity and financial investment required.
Choices and Partner Business Models
You can choose by technology, geography, and/or service which combination of Cisco Branded Services,
your own partner-branded services, and Cisco Collaborative Services you would like to offer to
customers.
For example, you may choose to resell a Cisco Branded Service such as Cisco Smart Net Total Care for
support services, and leverage Cisco Collaborative Professional Services for your Cloud planning and
implementation services.
In other situations, you may want to offer a certain type of service to meet specific customer needs. For
example, you may have a customer who wants to know that Cisco is delivering the service directly, or
that Cisco has “skin in the game” in terms of providing your team with the necessary support.
Cisco Delivery and Partner Delivery Comparison
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 23 of 31
Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Decision criteria for taking a Cisco Branded Services or Cisco Collaborative Services approach depend on
the degree of investment you have or are willing to make in terms of:




Capability and interest to build and maintain a technical support or managed service
infrastructure, its processes, and hire and retain people.
Degree to which you currently have abilities to build a professional services staff with
consultative capability.
Degree to which you currently have abilities for retaining and growing technical architects,
technology strategists, and engineering staff.
Degree to which you have resources to adequately staff and manage a professional services
practice, such as practice managers, solution architects, and project implementation specialists.
You have three choices. You can resell Cisco Branded Services; you can leverage a Cisco Collaborative
Service or build your own service; or you can adopt a hybrid approach involving both. (Figure 9)
Figure 9: Services Delivery Models
Refer to the Cisco Services Partner Program for more details about the services and the options
available.
Resources:
Resource
Cisco Services Partner Program
Cisco Product Support Services
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Links
http://www.cisco.com/go/cspp/
http://www.cisco.com/web/services/portfolio/producttechnical-support/index.html
Page 24 of 31
Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Marketing
This section provides information, guidance, and links to resources that can help you market Smart Net
Total Care and your partner-branded services to customers.
Where do Opportunities come from?
To begin, we need to consider where the opportunities for these services come from, or how you can
generate interest in and demand for your services.
Opportunities can be classified into two major categories: New or Existing. (Figure 10)
Figure 10: Where do opportunities come from?
The “New” category includes opportunities derived from new customer accounts, or new opportunities
from existing customer accounts. The “Existing” category includes opportunities from your existing
customer accounts, and specifically related to equipment and solutions that you have already sold to
those customers, or are tasked with managing for those customers.
It is important to distinguish between these scenarios, because each scenario requires a slightly
different marketing approach to be successful.
At the most fundamental level, these different scenarios represent your key target audiences. For this
reason, it is important to design your marketing plans, messaging, and campaigns to align with these key
audiences.
How do you Find Opportunities?
Once you have identified where the opportunities can come from, you will need to determine how to go
and find those opportunities, or how to generate demand and interest.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 25 of 31
Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Figure 11: How to Find Opportunities
As shown in Figure 11 there are a number of things that you can do in terms of marketing and demand
generation to find opportunities for your Smart Net Total Care and value-added services.
Add-on’s to existing Engagements
This category represents situations where you are already engaged with a customer. Having an existing
engagement with a customer provides an excellent opportunity to sell your branded services together
with Smart Net Total Care.
For example, the customer may not currently have a product support service for their existing
equipment, or may not have a consolidated view of their inventory of devices. In these cases, you may
want to position Smart Net Total Care as a solution.
In other cases, you may be engaged with a customer that currently uses SMARTnet. In this situation,
Smart Net Total Care can be positioned as a valuable enhancement to SMARTnet.
In all cases, having an existing engagement with a customer provides you with an excellent opportunity
to sell your branded services together with Smart Net Total Care.
Marketing Campaigns
Once you have defined your offer strategy and completed the steps to resell Smart Net Total Care and
your own services, you can develop a marketing campaign that targets both your existing customers and
new customers. You may leverage existing Cisco marketing content, programs, and campaigns, or you
may create your own marketing campaign specifically focused on your new offers. Refer to Cisco Partner
Marketing Central for a list of Cisco marketing campaigns and supporting resources.
Workshops & Events
Running workshops and events for your existing customers is an excellent way to provide added value to
those relationships and to nurture and maintain strong relationships with your customers. Use these
workshops and events to share information about the benefits of Smart Net Total Care and your valueadded services with your customers. These are ideal opportunities to engage more deeply with your
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 26 of 31
Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
customers. These workshops and events are also a good opportunity to provide demonstrations of the
service and generate interest.
Customer Discovery Meetings
These customer discovery meeting are situations where your sales people meet directly with customer
staff to discuss their business needs and technical requirements, and to discuss future plans and
strategy.
This is an ideal time to explain to your customers the importance of knowing their network and making
sure their network devices have sufficient support coverage that is updated, current, and not about to
end. These meetings give you an opportunity to demonstrate your value to your customers and to
position your services within the context of their needs.
Data Collection & Analysis
Once a collector is installed on a customer’s network, and a service such as Smart Net Total Care is in
place, it will be possible to gather and analyze a significant amount of information about the customer’s
network. This provides an opportunity to identify devices not covered by a service contract, identify
devices in need of service renewals, and identify devices nearing end of life.
This data collection and analysis process will provide your team with information you can use to help
your customers make sure their network is covered, all their products are supported, and all their
devices are at the latest levels. In addition, you can help them plan for future upgrades and changes to
their network, and you can help them plan for future capabilities that may be required for the business.
Recognizing Other Opportunities for Cisco Smart Net Total Care
Consider taking the following strategies and actions to uncover customer opportunities to target for
Cisco Smart Net Total Care:




Consider which customers have changes due to moves and network modifications and would, as
a result, benefit by knowing more accurately what devices are where.
If not done already, identify budget cycles for each customer. Discuss with the customer their
needs for an accurate inventory of installed devices to complete or improve the process.
Identify customers with no or limited technical staff in-house and discuss their needs for a way
to more effectively and efficiently manage their network.
Discuss with customers having low or medium technical abilities the need for a smart, proactive
service to help manage their installed base.
What do you Need?
To support these marketing and demand generation activities, you will most likely need various assets,
documents, templates, tools, and other resources. These may include:







A Marketing Plan for your Smart Net Total Care and new service offers
A set of services that you can offer to customers
Customer data and analysis of existing customers
Presentation / education materials for customers
Trained technical teams and sales reps
Marketing collateral
Tracking / Reporting system
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 27 of 31
Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Cisco provides many of these resources to support reselling Smart Net Total Care as well as additional
resources and guides designed to assist you with the development, positioning, and selling of your own
partner-branded offers.
Refer to the resources table for more details.
General Resources:
Resource
Partner Marketing Central
Marketing Your Value Added Service Offering
Marketing: Creating Demand for Your Service
Offerings
Cisco Discovery Service
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Description
Marketing portal for Cisco Partners
Leading Practice Guide for Marketing your
Value Added Services Offering
Leading Practice Guide for creating demand.
Cisco Discovery Service helps network
assessment tools perform advanced analytics
and reporting on Cisco equipment
Page 28 of 31
Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Sales
Once you have defined your offers and have your marketing campaigns and assets in place, the next
step will be to position and sell Smart Net Total Care and your value-added services to customers.
In order for the sales process to be successful, it will be necessary to identify and understand the various
roles involved. This is particularly important when reselling a Cisco service such as Smart Net Total Care,
as the process requires your sales team to work closely with the Cisco teams.
Typical sales roles include the following:




Note:
Partner sales account manager: Your sales person responsible for the customer account.
Partner pre-sales technical lead: Your technical lead who works with your sales lead to help
position and sell the services.
Cisco Partner Services Development Manager: The PSDM will be your primary point of contact
to help facilitate the integration with the Cisco teams.
Cisco Account Manager: The Cisco CAM is the primary customer account contact for the
relationship between the customer and Cisco.
Refer to the Go to Market Model section at the beginning of the playbook for information
relating to the Cisco Services GTM Rules of Engagement.
When these roles are identified, and the required access to systems is in place, the sales team can follow
the normal sales process to position and sell the services to the customer. At a high level, this process
typically includes the steps shown in Figure 12.
Figure 12: Typical Sales Process
In this sales process, the primary point of integration between your sales team and the Cisco team will
be the Obtain Pricing, Generate Quote step. It is important to include the Cisco team into this process to
ensure that the service is properly configured and sized correctly.
You may also want to work with the Cisco sales teams in situations where you need to handle
objections, as the Cisco sales teams will be able to help with difficult sales situations.
Specific ways you can integrate the resale of the Cisco Smart Net Total Care service into your business
include the following:

Inform and educate your marketing and sales staff about the Smart Net Total Care service.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 29 of 31
Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners


Upsell your existing Cisco SMARTnet customers that have the appropriate customer
characteristics to Cisco Smart Net Total Care with little financial impact to the customer.
Introduce Cisco Smart Net Total Care as a marketing touch point with your customer
interactions and services portfolio discussions.
Cisco has created an online interactive demo to help sales teams to position and sell Smart Net Total
Care. This includes a lab with equipment that is dedicated to helping position and sell the service. We
have replicated some common network situations that your customers will encounter and created
customer scenarios to help you use the portal and demonstrate its capabilities to your customer or
prospect.
Please contact your Cisco PSDM for details about how to access this interactive demo environment.
Smart Net Total Care Resources:
Resource
Smart Net Total Care Interactive Demo
Smart Net Total Care Sales Playbook
Description
Contact your Cisco PSDM for more details.
Sales playbook for partner sales teams.
(Contact your PSDM for more details)
General Resources:
Resource
Selling: Structuring and Training Your Team for Growth
Selling: Developing a Solution Sales Approach for
Cisco’s Advanced Technologies
Selling: Implementing a Profitable and Repeatable Sales
Framework
Selling Cisco Services: Moving Beyond the
Fundamentals to Accelerate Growth
Selling: Delivering Effective Discovery Sessions
Overview
Selling: Optimizing Your Relationship with Cisco Field
Resources
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Description
Leading practice guide
Leading practice guide
Leading practice guide
Leading practice guide
Leading practice guide
Leading practice guide
Page 30 of 31
Smart Net Total Care
Playbook for Partners
Measuring Success
The following example metrics can be used to measure the success of your product support and
managed services offers and your specific Smart Net Total Care based services offers.
Note: Refer to the Resources folder in the Playbook package containing this document for an Excel
Workbook version of these tables.
Track Performance Metrics
Metric Description
Number of Smart-enabled services marketing campaigns
Number of people trained in selling Smart Net Total Care and
your smart-enabled services
Number of Smart Net Total Care and smart-enabled services
proposals
Close rate of Smart Net Total Care and smart-enabled
services proposals
Percentage of Smart Net Total Care renewals
Number of Smart Net Total Care success stories created
Marketing Return on Investment
Percentage of business by annuity/subscription and
transaction
Mix of Cisco Branded Services, Cisco Collaborative Services,
and partner-branded services
Revenue from your partner-branded value added services
Optimization Assessments
Metric Description
Number of devices unsupported and percentage that are
now covered by a service contract
Degree to which the customer takes action on the alerts
provided by Smart Net Total Care
ROI analysis and ROI report that shows the productivity and
business initiative gains from your smart-enabled services
Business Reviews
Metric Description
Frequency of formal communication with Cisco Partner
Account Managers for business reviews with Cisco
Awareness of Partner/Cisco Initiatives
90 Day Plan for your smart-enabled services
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Period 1
Period 2
Period ..
Period 1
Period 2
Period ..
Period 1
Period 2
Period ..
Page 31 of 31